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Nothing Succeeds Like ‘Success’ by Justin Raimondo

August 4, 2012 Leave a comment Go to comments

 

The anti-interventionist movement, if we can refer to such an amorphous creature, is at a crossroads at the start of this election season. On the left, the remnants of the antiwar movement have been dispersed and

 

Congressman Ron Paul at an event hosted in his...

Congressman Ron Paul at an event hosted in his honor at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

absorbed into the Democratic party, where they have become foot soldiers for Obama – a President who has taken up the foreign policy of his immediate predecessor and injected it with some pretty strong steroids. Left-wing antiwar activism has almost disappeared entirely, except for the marginal protests of a few Marxist-Leninist grouplets. Indeed, some on the left are even jumping on the interventionist bandwagon,claiming the Western-backed Syrian rebels are really Marxist “revolutionaries,” and not Osama bin Laden-wannabees.

 

On the right, the only significant anti-interventionist mass movement in decades, the Ron Paul campaign, has been bushwhacked by the Romneyites, who have taken harsh administrative measures against Paul’s supporters and outright stolen a good number of their delegates to the Republican national convention, ensuring that the Paulians will be kept in a well-guarded corral in Tampa.

 

 

Ron Paul’s campaign has been a lodestar for anti-interventionists of the left as well as those on the right: it has inspired us, heartened us, and given us that most essential fuel – hope. Now it is giving us a lesson in how the political system in our “democratic” country really works.

 

The two-party system is playing the role it was designed for: to keep the national discourse within “acceptable” bounds, and make sure nothing too “radical” is presented to the American public for their consideration. Aside from domestic issues, what this means is that our foreign policy of perpetual war is not up for debate: Romney’s straining to define some significant difference between himself and the administration on, say, Afghanistan, or Syria, underscores this filtering process at work.

 

By privileging two state-sanctioned “parties,” the Democrats and the Republicans, with automatic ballot status and government subsidies, the political Establishment has rigged the game, and nothing proves this better than the experience of the Ron Paul campaign in the GOP this past primary season.

 

obamadash

obamadash (Photo credit: GunnyG1345)

 

The Paulians played by the rules: they organized at the grassroots level and got their people to the various local and state conventions, where the real delegate selection process took place. Highly organized, and dedicated to their candidate and their cause, the Paulians showed up in record numbers – and the Republican party bosses freaked out.

 

In Louisiana they called the cops when they realized they had been outmaneuvered, and they did the same elsewhere. They shut down conventions and party caucuses rather than see delegates pledged to Paul take the prize. In Maine, where Paul won fair and square, their delegates are being challenged – a challenge almost certain to be upheld by the Republican National Committee and the credentials committee in Tampa.

 

If the game is rigged, what is an opponent of the American empire to do? Abstain from electoral politics?

 

No. Intervening in major party politics is a valid strategy, one that can be utilized to great advantage – provided it doesn’t become an end in itself. While some Paulian operatives are hailing the primary importance of achieving “mainstream success,” this oily phrase requires definition. What does it mean to succeed in the “mainstream,” as opposed to simply succeeding? I fear it means doing what Sen. Rand Paul has done: endorsing Romney and pledging to campaign for him and his thoroughly authoritarian and war-minded party.

 

Libertarian and conservative anti-interventionists who take this road will find themselves marginalized – not because their ideas are too “extreme,” but because they will have become cogs in a machine that is antithetical to their goals. We are told by some of Paul’s most prominent supporters – not Ron himself, however – that the Paulian movement needs to integrate itself into the GOP for an indefinite period. While they never flat out say it the clear implication is that this is to be a permanent “strategy”: we must liquidate the “liberty movement” (they’ve stopped calling it “libertarian”: sounds too radical) into the Republican party, and if only we’ll turn ourselves into water boys for Romney and his local clones we’ll have “proved” ourselves such loyal servants of Power that we’ll “win” in the end.

 

This is being marketed as “practical politics,” while anyone who raises an objection is……………….

 

EXCERPT

 

via Nothing Succeeds Like ‘Success’ by Justin Raimondo.

 

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